On Wednesday, December 7, the Senate gave final approval to HR 34 the 21st Century Cures Act by a vote of 94 to five. The bill (which had temporarily served as a vehicle for passage of the Families First Act) is a compilation of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding increases, changes in the drug
The final conference report on the “CARA” legislation includes changes under nine titles. Its emphasis, unlike past anti-drug initiatives, is more on prevention and treatment. It is a distance from some of the efforts of the 1980s when crack-cocaine was attracting all the attention in regard to substance use. Actions then and into the 1990s
On the last day of summer session, Thursday, July 14, the Senate approved the conference report on the “CARA” legislation and sent the legislation onto the President who will sign it. The vote was 92 to 2 with only Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) voting no. CARA or the Comprehensive Addiction
On Friday the Office on Adolescent Health (OAH) released the results of 41 rigorous evaluations on the effectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention programs. The studies, 90 percent of which were randomized controlled trials between 2010 through 2015, is expected to offer a significant contribution to the field’s knowledge of where, when, and with whom programs
Holding Pattern in Senate Last week efforts to adopt the House version of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456) (Conference Report 114-628) continued but success has stalled—at least temporarily. By week’s end the only thing that was clear is that they had not yet reached unanimous support for the bill and passing it.
Part of the delay in the final two years of phase-out of the adoption delink from the 1996 AFDC eligibility standard as included in Family First Prevention Services Act, is that it has been challenging to get data on how states are reinvesting state dollars saved as the federal adoption assistance funding expands due to
After the Tuesday evening dinner with Commissioner Lopez and reporter Christopher Walker, on Wednesday, April 20, CWLA members wrapped-up with a morning session focused on the substance use issue. With Congress continuing its focus on the prescription drug and opioids addiction issue (see following story) and a number of bills introduced in various committees including
The 2013 Annual Report for SSBG has been released. The annual report documents overall expenditures of the $1.7 billion in funding (approximately $1.6 billion in 2013 due to the sequestration cuts). In addition, each states breakout of how they spend SSBG and the number of adults and children served are listed. Overall the report summary
Wednesday, March 30 Results for America and that William T Grant Foundation sponsored a Capitol Hill discussion on how to strengthen and promote the use of evidence-based practice in human services. The briefing titled Building State and Local Capacity for Evidenced-Based Policy Making: How Can the Federal Government Help, featured a panel of five individuals
On Thursday, March 3 the Administration through the Department of Health and Human Services announced they were expanding Medicaid coverage to pregnant women and children beyond what the current Medicaid coverage allows. The announcement by HHS would expand care to an estimated 15,000 patients. The HHS expansion would also increase some of the coverage to